1999. What appeared to be a harmless meteorite crashing in the Nevada desert has turned out to be Darc Seed, an evil alien creature with horrible powers. By shooting strange magnetic rays, Darc Seed had turned the helpless nation into zombies and had brought the Statue of Liberty to life to do his dirty work. These rays had also given him control over many deadly weapons, but none were more powerful than the legendary samurai sword, Shura. When the great head of the samurai, Namakubi, heard that the sword had fallen into evil hands, he set off immediately for the United States. For only he possessed the strength and knowledge needed to recapture the magical sword and free the U.S. from the evil clutches of Darc Seed.
— Intro to Samurai Zombie Nation
A 1990 NES game developed by KAZe. Samurai Zombie Nation chronicles the epic struggle of one man's giant head against an army of zombie ninjas, whom he must kill with Eye Beams and acid spit, and eat the corpses for extra points.
This game provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Namakubi fires his eyeballs and vomit at enemies.
- Always Night: There's not a single daylight area in the game, and that includes cutscenes.
- America Saves the Day: Inverted. The entirety of America is imperiled, and is being saved by a Japanese Samurai head.
- Battleship Raid: Stage 3's boss, Atlas, happens to be one of these. He also doubles as a Cores-and-Turrets Boss.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Namakubi" literally means "severed head" in Japanese.
- Bowdlerize: An interesting case: Namakubi was originally supposed to be in the original Japanese version. Replacing him with the tengu was the result of the game developers thinking the Japanese consumers would find playing as a severed human head too gross, so they saved him for the western release.
- Compilation Re-release: Abarenbo Tengu & Zombie Nation pairs the game versions together for the Nintendo Switch and Steam with various additions such as achievements, rewinding, and an art gallery.
- Cultural Translation: The original, Abarenbou Tengu, was very different, focusing on a Tengu mask instead of a floating samurai head. Oddly enough, the floating samurai head makes more sense.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Namakubi is a ghostly severed head and is a Destructive Savior, but he's firmly on humanity's side and still rescues America from Darc Seed.
- The Dragon: The Statue of Liberty acts as one to Darc Seed after he brings it to life.
- Destructive Saviour: Namakubi saves the U.S. by shooting his own eyeballs and vomit at zombified American citizens, eating their corpses and destroying random buildings along the way.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: The plot of the game involves Darc Seed using magnetic rays to turn the American population into zombies.
- Everything-Is-Smashable Area: All the buildings and certain mountains can be blown apart spectacularly.
- Flunky Boss: Stage 3 once again.
- Konami Code: Inputting this during gameplay refills your lifebar.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: The game's opening refers to Namakubi as the great head of the legendary samurai.
- Losing Your Head You play as a disembodied head, whenever it be a samurai or a tengu.
- Mind Screw: Look back up at the description and tell us if anything makes any kind of sense.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Apparently they are able to man heavy machinery, use weapons, and are created by exposing human beings to magnetism.
- Palette Swap: Namakubi encounters blue-tinged clones of himself near the end of the second stage.
- Scoring Points: Done in an odd way. This is the only way to not only get extra lives, but heal yourself as well. Can also be considered Pinball Scoring due to how easily and quickly you can rack up points.
- Stationary Boss: This applies mostly to Darc Seed himself, but could also apply to Stage 1's boss the Statue of Liberty.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: 1999 was only 9 years ahead at the time of the game's release. Of course, that has since passed with no Darc Seed, no zombie nation, no robot Statue of Liberty, and no samurai head shooting eyeballs.
- Weaponized Landmark: The Statue of Liberty, who can use her torch as a flamethrower and (in the American version) has snakes for hair.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The manual makes mention of the sword Shura that fell into the wrong hands, but it is never seen or mentioned again.
- Zombie Apocalypse: When you're playing a game called "Samurai Zombie Nation", you'd expect this. Part of Darc Seed's plan involves turning all the people in the US into zombies.
